


the river twice

by Verbyna



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Addiction, Future Fic, Las Vegas, M/M, Relapse, past Eric Bittle/Jack Zimmermann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 16:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5673493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Going to Vegas seemed like the only option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the river twice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [decinq](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/gifts).



> Codie wanted a day in the life of Jack post-graduation. (Jenny wanted something that... only sort of made it into the fic? Oops.)
> 
> Big thanks to Amy for the read-through. Heed the warnings in the tags, friends.

Jack’s always liked the light in Kent’s big high-rise apartment in Vegas, how it bursts in like a physical thing. Kent’s bed is in the middle of a perfect stark rectangle, and for about an hour after sunrise, it’s so bright that it’s hard to see the rest of the room. A cave in reverse, sort of. An island. 

Kent’s lying on his side with a hand under his head, dead to the world. One side of his face is glowing, a little grimy with sleep, the other half hidden and pillow-creased. Jack will never get used to the new lines at the corners of Kent’s eyes. They make him want to claw his way back to when Kent was not even a little bit lived-in. He used to be perfect, too much to look at sometimes; now he’s hard to look away from, which is really not the same at all.

Kent’s fingertips are red and translucent against the pillow. Jack wants to touch him, see him in motion, but he wants to be alone a little more. He rolls slowly to a sitting position on the edge of the mattress and props his elbows on his knees, pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. He’s nauseous and slow; it feels like he’s on a boat, about to capsize, and he doesn’t have the energy to right it.

Dull pain pulses up his calves from the arches of his feet when he finally gets up. He makes his way to the bathroom, shuffling along the cold wall like he’s just come home drunk. His face in the mirror is fucking tragic. It makes him sick to look at: what does he have to complain about that he should look that worn?

The water in the shower is too hot, but the white noise of it blocks everything out, even his thoughts. He tilts his face up into it and inhales deeply, then forces himself not to cough. The burn is good. It reminds him where he is-- _when_ he is. Every one of his twenty-eight years presses down on him with the pounding spray. He thinks, _My name is Jack. I am an addict. It’s been eight hours since my last dose._

“Hi, Jack,” he croaks out loud. He opens his eyes. He starts washing himself when he hears Kent switching the blender on.

 

*

 

Kent leaves for the gym half an hour later. There’s are two gyms in his building, one for normal wealthy people and one for wealthy people who don’t need trainers. Jack mentally follows Kent’s progress to the latter as he counts out his pills on the bathroom counter.

He has maybe three weeks’ worth if he takes them like he should, which means he needs to talk to the night guard who sold him the last batch by the end of the week. He’s too hazy from last night’s sleeping pill to make the call right now, no matter what his brain tries to tell him. He won’t run out before he gets more, he knows he won’t, but he counts them again, just in case, and a third time because he swallowed a couple dry mid-count.

He goes to back to the bedroom with the _ouate_ -stuffed water bottle and carefully buries it halfway into his duffel bag, then goes to make the bed. He keeps looking over his shoulder, though, to where the bottle sits in the open, like it’s begging to be discovered. He can’t remember when Kent’s cleaning service is due. The days since he came down are all blurred together, but he knows Kent tosses everything that isn’t bolted down into trash bags before they come in. He knows why Kent does it, he’s been to Mrs. Parson’s house when Kent still whined about cleaning his room, but Kent’s never cared about personal space when it comes to him.

Jack puts his armful of bedding down and goes to wrap the bottle in the one good sweater he packed for the trip. It’s dark blue cashmere, a gift from Bitty last Christmas. He wouldn’t wear it around Kent anyway, but there’s something almost sacrilegious about using it like this.

It makes him feel like a bad person, but at least it reminds him he’s a person. It makes his hands stop shaking before the tremors turn into anything-to-stop-the-shaking. He stands over his bag for a long time, looking at the scrap of soft blue sleeve rising from the pile of black cotton that’s become his off-season uniform.

He thinks, _Someone wanted me to be warm,_ and for whatever reason, it pierces through the fog.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He’s not sure what for, which part, but it’s true.

 

*

 

He times his own visit to the gym so he’ll arrive when Kent’s in the shower. If Kent sees his stuff in the locker room, he won’t come looking, and then Jack can attempt to sweat out his bad decisions without explaining why he’s running so fast on the treadmill.

He’s in luck. It’s midmorning on a Monday and the locker room is empty, only a couple of bags on the benches, Kent’s rattiest monogrammed towel on the floor next to his shoes. There’s white noise in Jack’s head and echoing around him, and he hurries through to the floor so he won’t run into Kent despite his careful planning.

He starts to sweat pretty fast. He’s radiating heat and the smell of Kent’s deodorant; he can smell himself on every inhale, even if all his other senses are shutting down. His heart has a reason to pound now. It feels good to be a body--he told Bitty that once, when they were in bed and he thought Bitty would get it the way Kent gets it. It’s peaceful. It’s a rush, too, to push himself like this: more animal than man, more alive than addict.

He realises he’s hungry when the flavour of his nausea changes.

 

*

 

There are enough ready-made meals in Kent’s kitchen to survive a nuclear winter. Jack heats one up and eats it in the dining room. He even put it on a real plate. If he’s slow about lunch, he won’t have to wait around before his next dose.

There was a note stuck to the fridge to let him know that Kent’s visiting a hospital and won’t be back until later. _EAT_ , Kent added in block letters at the bottom.

Jack stares at it while he chews. He probably has dozens of invitations in his inbox, but his phone has been off for a week now. He’ll have to switch it back on to score soon, but it’s… It’s a lot to deal with. He doesn’t feel anything, but the panic is still there, the way an injury is still there under local anesthetic. 

He drops the fork and spits out a tasteless mouthful into his napkin, then tosses it on the half-full plate and pushes the whole mess away. He needs those pills _now_ , before he gets even more pathetic, but he can’t take more. It hasn’t even been five hours.

He gets up to take the plate to the kitchen, but somehow he ends up stuck there next to the table. Time skips a bit, speeds up, stretches. There are dark spots in the corners of his eyes. It’s so familiar that he doesn’t try to fight it, and as he lets go, he thinks about that month he and Kent were happy.

Ten years ago almost to the day, they went on a run in the woods. Kent hated hated _hated_ the rattle of Jack’s emergency meds in his pocket: “Stuff some cotton wool in the bottle, jesus,” he said, red in the face and panting with exertion. Jack remembers it so clearly because it became a survival tip somewhere down the line. Those last couple of months with Eric, he touched everything through _ouate_ : skin and tape and pills, the Art Ross.

It’s not like that anymore. He’s not touching Eric at all; he’s not even touching Kent, because he’s drowning and he can’t pull anyone else down with him. He’s self-centred, but he tries not to be selfish.

Going to Vegas seemed like the only option when the sense of unreality broke and he became an exposed nerve all over again. He had to go to Kent, be around him, wait for another offhand suggestion like the one he’s using to keep Kent from figuring out he’s harbouring a junkie instead of letting his old-new boyfriend spend their holiday at his house.

Kent’s day with the Cup is this Saturday, after all the rookies and the guys who’ll retire this year have had their turn. That’s a deadline. Jack isn’t sure what the deadline is for, but even as high as he is, he knows that it’s important. He wouldn’t be this scared if it wasn’t.

He takes another dose in the bedroom and falls asleep on top of the covers.

 

*

 

He wakes up to Kent stripping quietly in the doorway. For a second he can’t remember where he is, but then he recognizes the fabric under his head, the smell of dust and sleep-sour bodies, and thanks his reflexes for keeping him still.

He watches Kent through slitted eyes: his stiff hair, his arms flexing to pull his undershirt over his head, his perfect off-season abs, the surgery scars on his knees when he takes his jeans off. Jack spent so long wanting him and trying not to want him that he’s not sure how he feels about getting this now. Like they’re going back, maybe. Like it was all a detour and they forgot how to move forward.

“Remember that time,” Kent whispers, “when I said it was your fault I got pneumonia and missed five games?”

They were fighting over something stupid, Kent with tubes in his arms and Jack terrified, and when Kent said that, it was like the roof caved in. A year later is was Jack’s turn in the hospital, and he kept Kent away. He didn’t want Kent to ever feel that guilty.

Kent gets into bed and knee-walks to Jack, but makes no move to touch him yet. “I lied. I already knew I was sick when I gave you my jacket. I couldn’t blame you for anything else, so I blamed you for that.”

Jack reaches out and pulls Kent down to lie on top of him. It’s a struggle; Kent’s resisting, but he doesn’t actually try to push Jack’s hands away, so Jack keeps pulling until they’re close enough to pretend it was ever easy.

“Thank you,” Jack says eventually.

“For what?”

“For not blaming me for everything else.”

Kent shudders once, all over, before he crawls up Jack’s body to kiss him. It’s not enough; Jack runs both his hands down Kent’s back, then back up to squeeze his shoulders when he feels Kent’s sticky fingers on the bare skin at Jack’s waist.

“I’ll help you,” Kent promises. “I’ll help you this time.”

Somewhere, a clock stops ticking.


End file.
